Arts Post May Go to Country Music Expert

WASHINGTON —  President Clinton said Friday that he intends to nominate William J. Ivey, director of the Country Music Foundation and a prominent essayist on America’s musical traditions, to head the besieged National Endowment for the Arts.

The appointment of the scholarly Ivey is a decidedly lower-profile choice than his predecessor, actress Jane Alexander, who stepped down in October after shepherding the NEA through an assault by congressional conservatives who sought to abolish it.

Ivey has led the Country Music Foundation, based in Nashville, since 1971. If the Senate confirms him for the NEA post, his experience would make him the first chairman of the 32-year-old agency to have actually developed and run a nonprofit cultural organization.

That was a key factor in Clinton’s decision to tab him for the arts job. White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said the president was looking for “someone that would bring a lot of expertise and background to the position.”

But political considerations likely came into play as well.

In their opposition to the NEA the last several years, many congressional conservatives criticized it as elitist in its approach to promoting the arts and awarding grants. As an example, these critics charged that the agency tended to ignore such genres as country music.

For those critics, Ivey’s background should prove appealing.

But Ivey could face some tough questioning for his view that the arts deserve widespread financial support.

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As a member of the president’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, Ivey contributed to a report earlier this year that recommended the federal government spend $2 per citizen annually on the arts and humanities. That could amount to more than $500 million--a sum surely unpopular among those who have sought to zero-out NEA funding.

In the early 1990s, the NEA’s annual budget approached $200 million. But during the recent struggles over the NEA, the Republican-led Congress has succeeded in reducing that amount to just under $100 million.

Ivey, 53, is known in Washington for advocating the preservation of historical recordings of classical and popular music.

The foundation that he heads runs the Country Music Hall of Fame, publishes a country music journal, has a small record label and operates two historic sites, including the Nashville studio where Elvis Presley recorded.

Ivey is a Detroit native with a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree in folklore and ethnomusicology from Indiana University.

The amateur guitarist and songwriter has served on the board of the American Folklore Society and has taught at both Brooklyn College and Vanderbilt University.

“The NEA is an agency that I care a lot about personally,” Ivey told the Associated Press on Friday. “It’s an honor to be a candidate for that job and possibly the head of the agency.”

With Congress in recess, leading NEA foes could not be reached for comment Friday. But one of the key Democrats who led the fight to save the NEA approved of the president’s choice.

“I look forward to the opportunity to work with the new chairman in our effort to preserve and increase federal funding for the arts,” said Rep. Louise McIntosh Slaughter (D-N.Y.).